_Ashley_: "Was I? But not before I had told you that I knew you were doing all that for my best good, and I wish--I _wish_ you could have seen how exemplary you looked when you were trying to pour a cocktail out of a corked bottle, between your remarks on passionate fiction and puffs of the insidious cigarette! When the venomous tobacco began to get in its deadly work, and you turned pale and reeled a little, and called for air, it made me mentally vow to go back to Miss Fray instantly, whether I was engaged to her or not, and cut out poor old Brooks--" _Miss Ramsey_: "Was it Mr. Brooks? I didn't hear the name exactly." _Ashley_: "When I was telling Miss Garnett? I ought to have spoken louder, but I wasn't sure at the time you were listening. Though as you were saying, what does it matter now?" _Miss Ramsey_: "Did I say that?" _Ashley_: "Words to that effect. And they have made me feel how unworthy of you I am. I'm not heroic--by nature. But I could be, if you made me--by art--" _Miss Ramsey_, springing to her feet indignantly: "Now, you are ridiculing me--you are making fun of me." _Ashley_, gathering himself up from his hassock with difficulty, and confronting her: "Do I look like a man who would dare to make fun of you? I am half a head shorter than you, and in moral grandeur you overtop me so that I would always have to wear a high hat when I was with you." _Miss Ramsey_, thoughtfully: "Plenty of girls are that way, now. But if you are ashamed of my being tall--" Flashingly, and with starting tears. _Ashley_: "Ashamed! I can always look up to you, you can always stoop to me!" He stretches his arms toward her. _Miss Ramsey_, recoiling bewildered: "Wait! We haven't got to that yet." _Ashley_: "Oh, Isobel--dearest--darling! We've got past it! We're on the home stretch, now." XIX THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS A MORALITY I MR. AND MRS. CLARENCE FOUNTAIN